Law Commons^™

The Bitter Pill Of Empiricism: Health Maintenance Organizations, Informed Consent, And The Reasonable Psychotherapist Standard Of Care, Ellen Wertheimer

Ellen Wertheimer

Although adequate for holding most professionals to certain levels of conduct, the doctrine of negligence has traditionally been difficult to apply to treatment decisions in the mental health arena. The reasons offered for this difficulty all appear to revolve around the fact that psychology is still very much a philosophy and not a science, making it difficult to establish a clear standard of care. The advent of managed behavioral health care, with its accompanying emphasis on scientifically supported intervention, promises to rectify this situation. Managed behavioral health care is forcing the field of psychotherapy into changing its fundamental nature, from …